Facebook is redesigning its looks once again, and it will most probably give more space for ads. It seems to be a logical step but I believe it is backed up by the wrong anticipation of how advertising will work in the future. Facebook is not the only company that shifts their activity focus from the needs of consumers to the requirements of brands. But putting the consumer and the brand on opposite sides of the story is a mistake.
You must have heard of the theory of push-advertising slowly but irreversibly turning into pull-advertising, mentioned by Seth Godin among others a few years ago. The boom of search marketing techniques and sites like Tripadvisor show that this might be very true.
Even more so when all digital communication is shifting to mobile devices. Why? It is simple. The smaller the screen, the less irrelevant information can survive. In other words, I can easily read the news on my desktop computer and ignore the banners on the side, but when I read my Facebook news feed on my smartphone and a sponsored story appears, I get upset and begin to think about quitting the platform altogether.
Mobile advertising will not have a choice but put the comfort and the real-time needs of the consumer in the very focus of each and every activity. How can this be done? The technology has already been there for long. Big data analysis and data mining that banks and telco providers have been using for years now will be the starting point of the new era of mobile advertising. Today brands do everything to talk to as many potential consumers as possible. In the near future, they will have to do their best not to talk to someone who is not interested in their message in that given moment, at that given location. By the further improvement of CRM techniques and their integration with digital targeting, the scene of Minority Report where Tom Cruise is attacked by a totally personalized message on a holographic poster will come true.
Ads on your mobile will look like this: "Well, it has been 3 years you are driving this Opel. Why don't you change for a Ford. Your 3rd baby is on the way anyway, so you will need some bigger family car... Pop in the Ford dealership, you will probably drive by it this afternoon when going to the gym."
Do you think it is horrifying? Not at all. Because you will be able to control the process with a simple push of a button. And if you say NO, you will never ever be disturbed by a similar ad. Mobile companies and media owners will do everything they can to keep you online, and the most they can do is to make sure you are not bothered. You will only get the ads you need, and you will only get them in the very best moments. What's more, you will also be able to adjust the number of branded messages you want to receive. Impossible? Not at all. Think of the genius control system of StumbleUpon: you either say I like it or I don't, and their tagline is "The more you do it, the better it gets." You could not possibly get closer to user friendly advertising: mobile ad systems will be able to evaluate your behavior so after a few months of usage time you will only get branded messages in the best moments, from the brands you are interested in, and these platforms (like StumbleUpon or LastFM) will even be able to surprise you with some new offers from new brands that you will probably fall in love with, because people like you usually do.
So, if Facebook decides to simply give more space to ads, it begins to go back in time. Just like vaguely targeted Youtube preroll videos bringing back the era of TV ad blocks, banners on your Facebook page will turn social media into just another place full of irrelevant ads. These companies will have to find a way to talk to me only when I am interested, only about the brands I am interested in, and at a place where I can listen to the message and possibly react.
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